Chapter 26: Dead Money

My first reaction was annoyance, to have come so far only to face a hurdle in the final hour. I smothered that quick, with experience borne from far too many business deals gone south, to consider what to do. I could run. That was the simplest, expected course of action: I already had what I needed, so why not vanish into the night, and leave the homeowner scratching his head? The problem was, if the homeowner was the tailor, and it probably was, as was common for craftsmen to live above their shops in this era, then unless he was utterly incompetent, he’d do an audit of inventory and quickly realise what was missing. I was confident I could get away, but if he put out the descriptions then I wouldn’t be able to use the stolen clothes without tying myself to the thief.

[30 XP gained for a bit of shoplifting.]

I paused, looking at the pop-up before quickly dismissing it: I hadn’t gained a level just yet, so now was not the time for distractions. Back to the point, I couldn’t run and leave the tailor to draw his own suspicions: in order to remain free to act in Allensward, I would need to do a bit of a cover up.

“Pumpkin, can you lure them to me?” I asked, as I ducked underneath the tailor’s table, hiding myself beneath solid wood and tablecloth.

Pumpkin meowed softly, which could have meant yes, no, or that he was hungry, but, peeking out from between an impromptu curtain, I watched him pad over to the foot of the stairs, and sit, just as the tailor’s feet came into view. Hurriedly, I pulled the tablecloth back in place, concealing myself entirely. The System was fair, and only showed name tags if you could perceive the person in question, so I was safe, as long as he didn’t look under the table too closely, but it did mean I was reliant on sound from her on out.

“A cat?” I heard the tailor say, a low, gruff voice, tinged with a hint of confusion. “How’d you get in here? Did Ralph forget to close the windows again?”

Pumpkin hissed at him, scooting backwards a few steps, something I only heard because he wanted me to, having kept his claws out to clatter against the floorboard as he moved, even step ever slightly louder than the last. Good cat, I thought to myself, he was doing as I’d asked, and setting up a classic ambush.

“Oi, get over here!”

I heard an indignant yell, as the tailor tried to catch Pumpkin and was as successful as my own efforts, back when we were training: turns out, cats were significantly faster and more agile than humans, go figure. The correct way to catch a cat was with a trap, not whatever was going on nearby, but either the tailor had no experience with cats, or he wasn’t thinking properly after being woken up in the middle of the night; either way, it was to my advantage. Pumpkin gave a mocking yowl in response, a terrible cross between nails and chalkboard and a screaming baby, before hopping onto the table right above me with a soft thump.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“By the fifth, could you stand still?”

His footsteps were closer now, but still I waited until a faint shadow was visible even through the thin fabric, and he was mere inches from my face. Only then did I displace the tablecloth, and get a proper look at him.

[Chip Norton - Level 2 Tailor]

It was the tailor, which I’d expected but hadn’t been guaranteed: he could’ve had a family or students boarding at his home, for all I knew. A short, stocky frame, hands calloused from manual labour, and a beard stretching down to his waist. I didn’t bother to look at anything more than the basics, because I was loath to waste my advantage. I had sight of him, while he still hadn’t seen me, his attention focused upon Pumpkin, and that made it simplicity itself to reach into my inventory, and withdraw my remaining nine gilt right inside his throat, before returning the tablecloth to its rightful position.

[9 Gilt withdrawn.]

This was perhaps overly paranoid of me, I reflected, as I heard the tailor fall to his knees, hands wrapped around his throat as he choked to death, but I genuinely believed that caution was warranted. This wasn’t Damien, an orphan with no notable connections on the right side of the law: he knew people in passing, like any other orphan, but nobody would commit to a true relationship before he received a Class. Too likely to end in separation and heartbreak, that; similar to how puppy love between teens tends to wither, once university and the workplace came along and pulled them in very different directions. Likewise, he was unlikely to get much sympathy from his criminal friends, even if he mentioned that he’d been assaulted.

A tailor, on the other hand, was a fixture of the local community, and sure to have friends who would take umbrage at his murder. He might even have them on his Contacts list, and be tempted to name his killer as a final act of defiance. There was no point inviting such risks, so I didn’t: he never saw me, so there was nothing to report. At best, he might tell someone he was choking, but by the time they woke up and came to his shop to investigate, it would be far too late for him.

The Frontier Gild was a large, round bodied coin, approximately the same size as the two Pound sterling. One of them in the windpipe would have caused significant discomfort, two or three of them a danger; nine of them, packed in the same section of his throat? That was more than enough to completely block airflow to his lungs, at which point he’d be unconscious before five minutes, and dead by ten, so all there was left to do was wait. In the end, Mister Norton fell on the short side of the scales, in death as in life, and passed from the world after seven and a half minutes.

[50 EXP gained for your first premeditated kill!]